Quote:
Originally Posted by KentE
Thanks for the tips, Koland! (your blog is definitely one of the "good affiliate" blogs in my mind, and I wouldn't want to hurt you.) Since I don't own a Kindle, but use Kindle4PC, I think the second method sounds workable for me without significant hassle. (and it gives me a reason to finally fire up and try a different browser, since I normally use Firefox & hate IE).
Thanks for the comments about the cookies, & information that isn't shared with the affiliate. Someone mentioned above the number of cookies placed on their PC via an Amazon purchase-- I'm aware that Amazon is one of the most pervasive of "data collectors" that we can deal with, but it's nice to have your confirmation that the affiliate cookie data doesn't go back to the affiliate (seems like one concern removed for those who oppose cookies on principal).
KentE
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I share your view of Koland's site, and Karen has been active in helping a lot of us affected by this hash out how to respond and adapt to it.
As for the stuff about cookies and data passed on, affiliates only get a list of what was sold essentially, not who bought what, etc.
As for all the concern about cookies and "tracking" cookies.....
I really view a lot of the concern over that stuff as way overblown. Like the new anti-gmail campaign by Microsoft to try to bolster their new outlook service, making ads criticizing gmail for their targeted ads based on email content.
Frankly, I would much rather see ads that are more likely to be of interest to me, and I recognize that very little "personal" information goes along with that info that could tie back to my real identity. I don't really see the privacy concerns with this that so many others do.
I find it terribly amusing that some of the ones I see blast on about privacy concerns from advertiser cookies have the least restrictive settings for privacy turned on at social networks like facebook.
As a consumer, I WANT sites I use to be profitable. If being able to show me ads that are more likely to be of interest to me helps them get the revenue they need to keep providing the services I go to them for, or the content I go to them for, I have zero problem with that. The tracking cookies don't track ALL your internet traffic, only ones that share the same ad network. And usually the ad networks do not share much of that info with the sites, except in aggregate, and the sites don't provide the networks with the ability to identify you, provided they even can identify you themselves.
When you really truly do not want to be tracked, Chrome's incognito and Firefox's private browsing options exist. Use them when you are truly concerned about privacy regarding something, I do. I keep a usb stick with me with a portable chrome on it, that I use plugin and browse with when I am using someone else's computer for that very reason, so my browsing isn't a part of their browsing history.
Anyway, back on topic, authors are reporting significant decreases in downloads of their free books on the KDP select free promotions. One author reported a drop from 10k downloads on past free promotions for his book, to under 600 in the promotion they just ended that started after the change.